DC Genesis

"My gosh, you actually fought a T-rex?" Neal asked as he stared at Nico in surprise. Granted that Neal didn't know anything about dinosaurs, save what he learned from Jurassic Park, but he imagined that it was quite the feat. Having powers would definitely help, but that was still quite the accomplishment to claim. Neal wanted to ask more question and hear more, but he only got through two more stories before Rose suddenly moved in to the room.

As Rose spoke, Neal couldn't help but get more and more curious. He knew that Rose had a twisted sense of humor at times, but surely she wouldn't be joking about this right? It was one thing to get someone a little hurt at the cost of a laugh, but someone's kidnapping was definitely not a joke.

When Rose made her last comment, Neal just stared. What the hell was going on here?! "This doesn't make any sense. We saw that it was Xavin that was taken in to be operated on," Neal said before looking over at Doctor Midnight. "You operated on her right? Did you notice anything strange?"

Neal listened to everything as Nico was kind enough to piece everything together. If what she believed was true, than there was no telling what might happen. Karolina had been taken so easily because she was actually a still recovering Xavin. It was crazy, but now it at least made sense.

Neal couldn't help but be impressed. While he didn't say it out loud, he was amazed that these two loved each other so much to the point where they would do this for each other. That was what true love was right? Being willing to die and take the place of the one you loved...it was incredible that two so young felt this way towards one another.

Neal looked towards Rose. "We should communicate with Batgirl and let her know what's going on. They should know what's happened before they meet up with the Skrulls."

Neal was quiet as Rose made the call with Batgirl and received the information. So they had found Xavin but they hadn't found the Skrull yet. Things were turning out to get more and more interesting, which in this case wasn't that good. Neal had been hoping that they had just saved Xavin by the time that they made the call. No such luck though apparently.

Once Rose went to go watch Karolina, Neal turned his attention back to Nico after she had delivered her sigh. Neal wasn't quite sure what to say, he was guessing that the stress that came from being the leader was piling back on Nico again. She was probably thinking about leaving the team again, like the two of them had discussed before.

"Are you alright? You sound like you have a lot on your mind," Neal finally said as he looked to the Sorceress.

Neal just gave a nod to try to show that he was hearing what was going on. "Well....that may be true, but they already found her. That's a good sign. Besides, they have Power Girl plus everyone else there. That Super Skrull doesn't stand a chance against all of them," Neal said in the hopes that it would help to cheer Nico up. "Don't worry. We promised that we'd help all of you, and we aim to do just that. They'll make sure Xavin come home safely."

And for the next quite a bit of time they ended up just sitting there and talking. Neal decided that he would delve in to a lot more about himself now, though he did try to keep the details to a minimum incase Doctor Midnight told Batgirl about what was discussed. He talked about his dad and sister and their relationship. He also spoke about his power and how he had been using it since finding it. HE also spoke about how he had met Rose and the crazy things that had happened since.

"And so after that whole mess, Rose and I decided that we needed to work with Batman. We never wanted to be responsible for the death of anyone else," Neal said as he was staring at the ground. "It was all pretty awful when it happened. The bullet hit her but she didn't die for another hour...and so Rose and I decided that we needed to fight in order to make up for what we did. If Rose and I hadn't talked to her, she'd still be alive I think."

"It's alright. The wound is just still fresh ya know?" Neal said as he kept looking at the floor. "It's harder on Rose, the two of them were really good friends. I hardly knew the girl and I still feel terrible about it," Neal said before turning his head to Nico. "And please don't say anything to anyone. Rose would rip my tongue out if she learned I said anything about this."

At the last comment that Nico made Neal could only raise an eyebrow at first. "Rough? Why exactly is that?" he asked curiously. Neal was used to Batman looking the way he did. Having been a resident of Gotham for nearly all of his life, it was just natural to him that Batman dressed that way.

Neal gave a shrug. "You've never met the guy. Believe me, the one thing you don't want to call him is lame. If you meet him you'll understand exactly what I'm talking about," Neal said as he looked over at Nico with a smile on his face. "And come on, you have superheroes on your world, don't you think some of the great ones dress a little strangely?"

Neal suddenly had a question rush in to his mind. "Hey by the way. You mentioned you guys used to have codenames like I do now. What was yours?"

As the codename was revealed, Neal did his best not to laugh...however he couldn't stop that smile from slowly creeping over his face as he looked over at Nico. He didn't want to laugh or make her feel bad, but it was hard to not want to laugh at a name like that. Fade wasn't the greatest name in the world, but it was better than Sister Grimm.

"Did you pick that or did someone assign that to you?" Neal asked as he looked over at Nico and regained his cool.

"Kinda dangerous though isn't it? To let people know what your real names are?" Neal questioned as he looked at Nico curiously. As far as he knew all superheroes had a secret identity. How was it that they could survive without hiding their identities at all. They didn't even wear masks, and it let everyone know what they actually looked like even.

"I suppose that you make a good point, but it sounds like trouble finds you quite frequently," Neal remarked as he thought about everything that they had been through today alone. "If this is what happens to you guys in one day, I can only imagine what one week of your guys' lives must have been like. You've had it pretty rough it sounds."

The wall exploded violently, causing Neal to fall out of his chair from the force and surprise alone. Neal quickly pushed himself back up, and his eyes widened as he saw who was right next to them. Oh shit, everyone had thought that the Skrull was still healing, but in reality he had just come back to get the real Karolina. This was NOT good.

"Rose, I'm gonna need you to come back here right now," Neal said in to his communicator without offering any sort of explanation. "You took Karolina, she's not here," Neal said as he tried to give any sort of bluff. Neal couldn't fight the Skrull, and Nico was still injured. Rose and Doctor Midnight might help, but Neal had no idea just how much of a difference that would make.

"Damn," Neal muttered as the Skrull clearly had heard everything that went on. Neal didn't actually think that it had work, but it would have been nice to have such a simple solution to such a bad problem. A Super Skrull being only a few feet away from you was definitely one of the worst situations Neal had ever faced.

No, it was definitely the worst.

Neal heard everything else that the Skrull said, and he couldn't afford to wait. The Skrull may have been bluffing about the device being rigged, but Neal couldn't risk that. He quickly activated his communicator. "Batgirl! Don't remove any of the wires from the device that Xavin is in," he said quickly to make sure she heard it before they did anything. "The Skrull is here with us and he told us that he rigged it. He also has a button that he says will blow up Xavin should any of you try to come back and stop him from getting Karolina...he's not joking," Neal said before he ended the transmission.

His eyes stayed on the Skrull the entire time. All the while he was trying to think of some sort of a plan. He could try to cast an illusion, but if the Skrull thought that anyone was trying anything he might just blow up Xavin. Not only that, this Super Skrull could probably still kill all of them. All they had was Nico with her broken arm, Neal, Rose, and Doctor Midnight. Neal didn't even know what that guy could do.

"Nico, this is your team....you have to decide what to do," Neal said as he looked over very briefly at the young witch.

As he waited for Nico to speak, Neal felt like his heart was beating to the point where it was going to burst. The tension was too strong. Nico had to basically choose between two of her friends right now, as both of them looked like they could be dead based on what happened in the next few minutes.

Luckily, Rose had enough stones to attack the Skrull head on despite what he had said. It seemed to have worked too, as the attack struck the Skrull and also managed to knock the device from his hands. Perfect, especially once Doctor Midnight seemed to have caught it in his hands.

There was still a giant Super Skurll to deal with, but at least they were getting somewhere.

When Rose was shot through two walls, Neal was painfully reminded about just how strong this guy was. They weren't done yet. "Everyone run!" Neal shouted as he focused on the Skrull's mind and made everyone in the room go invisible. They needed to buy some time and come up with a way to defeat this guy. The last time that Neal had used his illusions there had been snow to give them away, but there wasn't any snow in the office this time.

Neal just hoped that his trick worked to help Doctor Midnight escape. Given the device was in his hands, surely the Skrull would be on him the moment that he could.